USAfrica: Fuel prices escalate, Naira exchange value drops, Tinubu appeals to Nigerians “be patient with us”
Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu has agreed with Nigerians that there are major difficulties being faced by the citizens and residents of Africa’s most populated country. In a statement by his Special Assistant on media and publicity, Mr. Ajuri Ngelale, on Tuesday, August 15, 2023, at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, said: “There’s still a bit of darkness to travel through to get toward the light and we are pleading with Nigerians to please be patient with us and as we promised from the beginning, we will be open with Nigerians, we will be transparent with them and we are ready to show you exactly what it is that our nation is facing with respect to the illiquidity in the market in terms of foreign exchange as a result of what is now known to have been a gross mismanagement of the Central Bank of Nigeria over the course of several years preceding this time.”
On the issue of the problems complicated by rising fuel prices Ngelale offered an assurance: “The official position is that there is no increase in prices at this time and that Mr. President is convinced based on the information before him that we can maintain current pricing without reversing our deregulation policy by swiftly cleaning up existing inefficiencies within the midstream and downstream Petroleum sector.”
He added that “Mr President wishes to assure Nigerians following the announcement by the NNPC limited just yesterday, that there will be no increase in the pump price of premium motor spirit anywhere in the country. We repeat, the President affirms that there will be no increase in the pump price of premium motor spirit.
We also wish to affirm that the President is determined to maintain competitive tension within all sub-sectors of the petroleum industry, he is determined to ensure that our policy drawn up, as well as policy implemented, follows the queue that there will not be any single one entity dominating the market. The market has been deregulated. It has been liberalized and we are moving forward in that direction without looking back.”
